Thursday, January 31, 2013

"Liberalism is a mental disorder. Common sense is the cure." - Ronald Reagan

I grew up in a conservative Christian family. I rebelled and embraced liberal slogans. The older I got, the more I noticed that liberal solutions were not getting the job done. In fact, they were doing harm. By 40, I had outgrown liberal ideas. By 50, I was a hard shell conservative.

Liberal ideals got a jump start with the 28th president Wilson. By the time Roosevelt and Truman were out of office liberal ideology was firmly in place and secure from threat. President Johnson advanced the cause mightily with Medicare. What seemed to be the right thing to do, the voting rights act, was a plan “to have them niggers voting Democratic for the next two hundred years.” Johnson’s crude racism strategy continues with Mexicans today. It’s not about immigration, it’s about votes.

Ann Coulter wrote a book about arguing with liberals. I read it but I can not recall her method. My method is not to argue. It’s a waste of time. They deal in slogans and ideals. I deal in facts. They ignore facts. One liberal was recently on a TV show and covered his ears to avoid hearing his opponent. Take the Snakehead, Debbie Wasserman Shultz. She is a prime example of being well trained to never answer a question, challenge a fact, but just talk about her message. Liberals only hear their hearts. You can not reason with them.

Arguing with liberals is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good I am at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock over all the pieces, crap on the board, and strut around the table looking victorious.

Bill Maher, Michael Moore, etc. make a living ridiculing conservatives. Barry Hussein, Chuck Schummer, Maxine Waters, etc. attack my values with regularity. The New York Times, MSNBC et. al. is a daily smear for progressive causes. Conservatives want to be left alone. Liberals are not content to do likewise.They think they know what is best for me. I am way past tired of rolling over for liberals to stick it to me.

What’s my solution? I think Dogbert was on to something with grinding them up into a slurry for fracking.

Where I find facts: I have read the Wall Street Journal for over 40 years. Charles Krauthammer, Victor Davis Hanson, Thomas Sowell, etc. provide with me great insights.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Today, entitlement programs account for nearly two-thirds of federal spending. In other words, welfare spending is nearly twice as much as defense, justice and everything else Washington does—combined.

Nearly half (49%) of Americans today live in homes receiving one or more government transfer benefits.

About 35% of Americans (well over 100 million people) are accepting money, goods or services from "means-tested" government programs-that is, benefits intended for the poor, such as Medicaid and food stamps. This percentage is twice as high as in the early 1980s. A third of all Americans receiving government entitlement transfers are seniors on Social Security and Medicare.

Got that? 1/3 of us are on programs such as Medicaid and food stamps and 1/3 are on Social Security. That leaves 1/3 of us to pay the bill.

It gets worse.

In December 2012, more than 8.8 million working-age men and women took disability payments from the government—nearly three times as many as in December 1990. That's more than the total number of employees in the manufacturing sector of the economy.

Yes, more are on disability than work in manufacturing.

The biggest increases in disability claims have been for "musculoskeletal" problems and mental disorders (including mood disorders). But as a practical matter, it is impossible for a health professional to ascertain conclusively whether or not a patient is suffering from back pains or sad feelings. However lawyers can determine if a person is eligible for disability. In fact, a cottage industry has grown up with lawyers and doctor's certifying the person is disabled. And the person never needs to even see the doctor.

Mr. Eberstadt is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "A Nation of Takers: America's Entitlement Epidemic" (Templeton, 2012).